Category Archives: literacy

I just can’t relax. Maybe it’s because I spend so many weeks of the year reading stuff I don’t feel like reading, including some really terrible writing, because I’m an English teacher. Maybe it’s because the Internet age has broken my brain. Maybe it’s because I’m an adult with adult responsibilities, like emptying the dishwasher and watching all four seasons of Scott and Bailey as fast as possible. Whatever the explanation, I look back fondly on my childhood days of curling up in an armchair or on my bed and reading for hours and hours, but I just can’t seem to do it any more.

This summer, a number of niggling projects have eaten away at my time, and I’ve felt even less inclined to abandon everything and read a book. Once the first of August loomed, though, a sort of reader’s panic set in. School is coming! I will have no time to do the things I want to do! All those library books will have to be returned unread! Read, dammit, read!

And yet the deficit in my attention remained, until I hit on a possible remedy.

I’ve heard references over the last couple of years to the Pomodoro Technique, a productivity aid in which you set a timer for 25 minutes and work intensively for that time, then take a 5-minute break, and then get back at it for another 25 minutes. I’ve never read any of the Pomodoro Technique literature or implemented any of the more complex elements of this technique, like tracking how many 25-minute increments a task requires, or recapping what was achieved in the last 25 minutes and reviewing before I take a break. (I have watched the little video on their website; that’s how I know these things are required if I want to be a “Certified Pomodoro Master”.)

However, I think a lot of teachers probably do their own variations on the Pomodoro technique. For example, I almost always grade papers one at a time, taking a short break after each to go put on a load of laundry, make a cup of tea, or go out in the garden to pick some tomatoes for lunch. Teachers also live our lives in defined and limited time intervals: the 15-week semester; the two-hour classroom block; the four-hour break between classes in which we planned to go to yoga but in which we’ll probably just eat chocolate and read our Bloglovin’ feed.

The Pomodoro technique, at least in its broad strokes, appeals to me, especially when it comes to really onerous tasks. I recently procrastinated creating a research questionnaire for almost two months; telling myself I only had to work on it for 25 minutes a day meant I finally got it done within a week. I think I could make it work for housecleaning, too. (Maybe.) (Not holding my breath.)

But then a couple of days ago, I thought: I bet reading in 25-minute spells would make me a happier reader.

So I tried it. It helped that it was no longer 41 degrees outside (that’s 106 for you Americans), so I could spend my reading time on the deck. I set my phone alarm to a pleasant melody. I poured myself some sparkling water. I made room on my comfy patio armchair for the cat. And then I forgot about everything else I had to do for 25 full minutes.

After the alarm went off, I dumped the book I’d been reading into my library bag, because it was now clear that I hadn’t been making time for it previously because I didn’t really like it. I made myself a cup of tea. I emptied the dishwasher. I pulled a few more books out of my “unread books” pile, returned to the deck, and set the timer again. This time, one of the books grabbed me right away. I have been reading it in 25-minute increments for the last two afternoons, until it’s dark or rainy enough to go inside, make dinner, and crochet in front of the TV, no longer feeling any conflict about not reading, because I have more reading to look forward to sometime tomorrow!

As a result, I’ve had a beautifully relaxing and nourishing couple of days. In the morning, I write and go for a run, and take care of any other urgent tasks. Then I settle in, without feeling like I’m trying to fill a whole empty afternoon: I’m just taking 25 minutes to do something enjoyable, and then I can deal with something practical, briefly, if need be. For someone like me, who constantly feels like some important task is not being taken care of, this practice allows me to really sink into a book, come up for air, and then sink in again. It allows me to spend the last days of my vacation reading, something I’d been planning to do from the first days, but for some reason just couldn’t.

Things I’ve learned from this practice:

If you don’t feel like reading it for 25 minutes, chuck it. The world is full of amazing books that you want to read right now; go find one.

Whatever you think needs to be done instead of reading, it can probably wait for 25 minutes.

I need to create a reading space inside my house that is as comfy and inviting and peaceful as that deck chair.

I’m going to suggest this technique to my students, especially those who have trouble reading long texts: set aside a block of time to get your reading done, but break it into 25-minute intervals. Keep track of how much you get read in that time, and use that information to figure out how much time you need to read a given text. In between intervals, get up and move. Too much sitting is bad for you anyway.

Are you a compulsive reader who will shunt everything off to read all day? Or do you find yourself distracted by Facebook, work email, and the children’s’ need to be fed and spoken to? How do you make time for reading? This method is working for me, but I’d love to hear yours.

If you are a teacher interested in using books in the classroom – whether you’re a literature teacher or not, and no matter what your grade level – I think you’ll get a lot out of Tara’s blog. Go check it out!

One element of my job is teaching students how to analyze literary texts. One challenge of my job is that a large number of my students have little experience reading literary texts; a surprising number have never read a novel, for example, that wasn’t assigned to them in school. This creates two important problems:

A student with little practice in reading literature has much more difficulty developing analytical reading and writing skills.

A literature class that focuses solely on analysis is unlikely to inspire a student to read more widely, thus perpetuating the problem.

Is it more important for me to teach students literary analysis, even if they’re not ready for it, or to help them discover pleasure in reading that will then lead them to develop basic intuitive skills that will help them analyze? The latter seems like the obvious answer to me, but I still have a duty to prepare them explicitly for their English Exit Exam, which requires them to analyze a text. In wrestling with this problem, I developed the course that I outline below. My original post on this course is the fifth-most-widely-shared post in the history of this blog.

In the first part of the course, we all read The Glass Castle and discuss the genre of the personal narrative. We review elements of narrative (theme, plot, setting, character, imagery/symbolism) and they apply them to the memoir. We then do a short analytical essay in class based on a choice of unseen texts (I like using the “Lives” section of the New York Times magazine as a source for excellent very short personal narrative texts.)

Module 2: Book Talks

Texts: students have a course pack containing copies of the front cover, the back cover or inside flap, and the first chapter of eight book-length memoirs. I ask them to browse this pack and then tell me the three books they’d most like to read. For example, one term, I included the following texts:

I assign one book to each student, taking their preferences into account whenever possible. Each book is therefore read by a group of 4-5 students. Their major assignment for this module is a “book talk,” in which they must, as a group, present the book to the class and argue that their classmates SHOULD or SHOULD NOT choose this book as their final reading for the course. Each person is responsible for a 5-7 minute presentation on one of the following topics:

Theme: Identify an important theme in the memoir. Make sure you state your theme clearly and precisely. Then give evidence from the memoir to support your theme, WITHOUT GIVING THE WHOLE STORY AWAY. Why does the theme make/not make the book a worthwhile read?

Historical, geographical or social/cultural information: Describe the historical, geographical and social/cultural setting of the book (where, when, and in what social context it happens). Make sure you make direct connections between the facts you provide and the events of the book. Why does the setting of the memoir make/not make the book a worthwhile read?

Another element of the narrative: You may wish to discuss the author’s use of another literary element such as conflict, characterization or imagery, and how it helps us understand and appreciate the story. Why does the author’s use of this element make/not make the book a worthwhile read?

Personal connection: Choose a scene, character, event or idea in the memoir that you found particularly interesting and discuss why you related to it. Tell us about how this aspect of the book reflected events in your life, and why other people in the class might relate to it too. Make sure you are comfortable discussing this personal connection, and consider whether your audience will be comfortable hearing about it. Why do the personal connections we might make with this story make/not make the book a worthwhile read?

Other important information you learned: Tell the class about an important topic you learned about from reading this book. Why does learning about this topic make/not make the book a worthwhile read?

Difficulty: Tell the class about a challenge you had, and that they might have, in reading this book. Is it worthwhile for readers to take on this challenge and read all the way to the end?

What you loved: Tell the class about something else you loved about this book. Be detailed, but again, don’t give everything away. Why does this aspect of the book make/not make the book a worthwhile read?

At the end of each week, students must write a Book Talk Report about one of the two books presented that week. They explain what they learned about the book from the excerpt in their course pack and from the Book Talk. They must identify at least one important similarity between the book they saw presented and the book they are reading with their group. Will they consider choosing the book they saw presented as their third course reading?

Module 3: Comparison

Text: each student chooses another book from the list above.

Students must write an essay comparing the memoir they presented in their Book Talk to the memoir they have chosen for their third reading. In this module, we also look at examples of personal narrative in film (for example, Persepolis or Stories We Tell) and in radio/TV (This American Life).

I’m planning some research on whether reading/studying fiction and other kinds of narrative is really such an important thing to do. I was therefore immediately drawn to this article (even though it’s Saturday night and I’m desperately trying to finish grading a stack of papers): a commentary on why techie geeks should read fiction.

Is it true? Does reading fiction make us more creative? Can it be “a funhouse mirror, a fantastic reflection that changes your perspective on something you see, but don’t necessarily see, every day”? If so, is reading fiction better at doing that than other kinds of reading, watching, listening, doing?

I occasionally have a brilliant, creative, articulate, interesting student or meet a brilliant, creative, articulate, interesting person who writes well and analyzes admirably but claims to never/rarely read fiction. I want to spend time following these people around to discover how they became so evolved while investing little time in a pursuit we readers often hold in higher intellectual/educational esteem than any other.

Does reading fiction really matter that much? I can’t make up my mind.

Menand poses a similar question, often asked by students: “Why do I have to read this?” Menand’s initial response is “Because this is the sort of book students in college read.” Menand feels this response is inadequate, but according to Stanley Fish, this is exactly what we should be telling students: “Just because.” What are the humanities worth? Don’t ask that question, Stanley Fish replies. (But you just did, Mr. Fish!!)

The auditorium was packed with students, and as I looked around, it was clear that many of them a) had no idea what he was talking about, or b) were unconvinced by his assertion that the poem “The Fore-runners” by George Herbert is its own justification and that we shouldn’t need to say anything more about the issue.

My main problem with his (entertaining and erudite) talk was this: he started by referencing Menand, who wants to determine why we should REQUIRE STUDENTS to study certain things. He ended by explaining why the study of the humanities should continue to exist and why colleges and universities should continue to fund those studies. (Sort of: his talk was also a sort of rail against the whole enterprise of “justification,” a position I also take issue with: more on this in a moment.) These are not the same question. Sure, the study of, say, literature, has all sorts of value that can’t be quantified, but Menand isn’t asking about that. He’s asking a question that I often ask. Why should every single student who enters a given institution, regardless of his/her personal goals, be required to study literary analysis, philosophy, etc.?

Fish’s premise in his talk was that “justification” entails explaining the monetary benefit of something, and he scorned the attitude that the purpose of an education is to qualify oneself for a good job. This is all very well for Mr. Stanley Fish, who outlined his own career trajectory nicely during the Q&A: he finished his doctorate in the ’60s, was immediately hired as an academic, and has been in a comfortable tenured job ever since, in addition to having the passion and skills required to be a world-famous cultural critic. For my average student, who has limited literacy, whose parents may well be scrabbling to make a living after their recent arrival from another country, and who doesn’t particularly like school but knows that he/she has no hope in hell of earning a decent wage without at least a college degree, the problem with viewing an education as part of a career path may be less obvious.

I’m not sure such a student needs to be investing him/herself in the study of George Herbert. I’m not sure that a CEGEP education, as it is currently organized, is serving that student as well as it could. I agree that many students benefit from spending time with poetry, or the living conditions in medieval France, or the works of Aristotle. For some students, though, these studies are frustrating and impenetrable, and the upshot is that they leave these courses having learned little, and feeling relieved that they jumped through one more hoop on their way to the life and career they want.

I have an odd little educational fantasy that might not be fantasy at all – I’m surprised that it is not a more active reality.

What would happen if established corporations, industries etc. set up their own “universities”?

For example: say you graduate from high school and you are currently inclined to work as a telephone technician. To do so, you need to apply to “colleges” established by major telephone companies like Bell Canada. These colleges do not just involve technical training; they are created by teams of highly trained educational consultants, as well as corporate managers, who determine together what kind of community they want the company to be, what qualities employees should possess, and what kinds of study would encourage these qualities. Literature and philosophy courses, therefore, would have a focus that might seem clearly relevant to students, even if they would also expose students to larger ideas, like the broccoli your mom pureed into your delicious buttery mashed potatoes.

Credits from these colleges would be transferable and recognized by other companies. Let’s say you apply to study with every telephone company in the country and are accepted by all of them; you choose to study with Bell, but when you graduate, no jobs with Bell are available. Not just your education but your application history would be valuable information on your CV, and hiring practices would need to account for an applicant’s entire experience. If you complete some of your studies but decide that working with telephones is not for you, your application to study with a local plumbing company would need to include a personal reflection on what you’ve learned so far and why it makes you a good candidate to study and apprentice with them.

What are the problems with such a system? What are the benefits? When I look around at many of my students who are struggling to make ends meet, to fit in all their required courses, and to find the relevance in a lot of their class material, I ask myself what might provide them with greater motivation and therefore greater learning. Telling them, a la Stanley Fish, that they shouldn’t be looking for relevance, that they’re asking the wrong questions, is not going to cut it with most of them. Would it help if the goal was clear, and if it was really and truly the student’s own personal goal?

I have also spent several lovely hours wandering through the stacks of three different children’s libraries. The nostalgia is permeating everything. I’d forgotten what it’s like to haul home a stack of 15 new delicious-looking books and devour 2 or more of them before the day is over.

I have spent most of my adult life searching for that blinkered bliss that accompanies childhood reading. I almost never find it. If this continues, I’m in for a really good winter vacation.

I am putting together a list of 42 excellent children’s books (one for each student) for my Child Studies course next semester.

I am looking for books suitable for children between the ages of 8 and 12 – “chapter books” rather than picture books. I’d also like them to be less contemporary books, books that my students are not likely to have encountered on their own – so no Harry Potter or Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

I’m particularly interested in books that will appeal to boys. Most books that spontaneously come to my mind are ones that I enjoyed, and my interests were not boyish. (Don’t get all up in my grill about gender stereotypes, please; anyone who teaches teenagers knows that these things matter.)

Here’s my list so far:

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (possible candidate for the whole-class reading)

Anne of Green Gables

Little House on the Prairie

A Wrinkle in Time

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Bridge to Terebithia

Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing

Harriet the Spy

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Swallows and Amazons

The Railway Children

The Secret Garden

Do you have suggestions for great kids’ books, especially books that my (mostly non-reading) students are unlikely to have encountered by themselves or through elementary-school reading assignments? What books did/do you feel kids really must read?

Last week, this post – first published in September of last year – spiked in my blog stats. It seemed a whole pile of people were reading it, but I couldn’t figure out who or why, although the search term “effort” had a corresponding spike. Maybe now, at midterm, teachers and students are being hard hit by the reality of the reading and writing demands of college. Or maybe it’s bots. Regardless, I like this post, and am still asking myself these questions: is college the best place for students who find reading and writing a chore? Is it a place where they can learn to love these activities, or at least see their value?

*

Yesterday, I told my college students that they need to read the next 150 pages of the novel we are studying, Life of Pi, over the next seven days. This is not news – they got a reading schedule on the first day of class, and were told to read ahead. Nevertheless, there was a collective gasp and more than a little laughter. A few moments later, during a close reading exercise, I asked them to talk about a passage with a group and come up with a point that they might focus on “if you had to write a couple hundred words about this piece.” Around the room, students looked at each other with horrified amusement. A couple hundred words? About this? What does she think we are, writing machines? There were quiet snorts and groans, subtly and not-so-subtly rolled eyes.

It’s early in the semester, and I still have reserves of patience that I won’t have in a few weeks’ time. By October, I may break down and say something like:

“If you’re not sure you can read one hundred fifty pages of clear, simple prose in a week, or if you’re not sure you can write two hundred words about a two-page passage, that’s ok. It’s not a problem if you don’t know how to do it – you can learn. However, if you don’t want to learn how to do these things – if you don’t want to practice and get feedback and meet that challenge, and if you resent me for asking you to – then college is not the place for you.”

The previous class, I’d asked students to interview each other about their reading habits, and write a paragraph about their partners’ reading lives. A predictable number of students said that they don’t like to read, never read for enjoyment, and last read a novel in the ninth grade, because it was required. (The number was predictable to me, that is – anyone who doesn’t teach college might be astonished by the number of college students who have absolutely no interest in reading.)

I would like at some point to ask similar questions about writing, but they seem redundant – surely people who don’t read also don’t write? However, “writing” has become a much more complicated phenomenon in the age of digital communication, and many would argue that our students “write” all the time, although a middle-aged fuddy-duddy like me might be reluctant to call much of the texting, messaging and Facebook posting they do “writing,” any more than I’d call a to-do list “writing.” Maybe what I’m talking about is long-form writing: long emails in the spirit of “letters,” diary entries that go on for pages and pages, poems and stories and even stabs at novels, blog posts.

“‘deep attention’ reading has always been and will always be a minority pursuit, a fact that has been obscured in the past half-century, especially in the United States, by the dramatic increase in the percentage of the population attending college, and by the idea (only about 150 years old) that modern literature in vernacular languages should be taught at the university level.”

Jacobs points to the American GI bill, and the influx of soldiers into American universities after WWII. From then until now,

“far more people than ever before in human history were expected to read, understand, appreciate, and even enjoy books.”

Once, only a tiny minority of people were expected to get a post-secondary education; now almost everybody is. However, it is still unreasonable to expect everyone to enjoy reading, even though a university education – at least a traditional one – is difficult to pursue if you don’t.

Jacobs divides people into those who love reading, those who like reading, and those who don’t. Universities, he says, are full of

“…often really smart people for whom the prospect of several hours attending to words on pages (pages of a single text) is not attractive. For lovers of books and reading, and especially for those of us who become teachers, this fact can be painful and frustrating.”

Jacobs says this is genetic – such people are “mostly born and only a little made.” A furor has arisen around this assertion – here’s one post that takes it on – but I think he may in part be right. But if readers and writers are at least “a little made,” what can teachers do to help make them?

According to Jacobs, maybe nothing.

“[The] idea that many teachers hold today, that one of the purposes of education is to teach students to love reading—or at least to appreciate and enjoy whole books—is largely alien to the history of education.”

Now, I’m ok with the fact that a lot of people don’t like reading and writing. I think they’d be better off if they did, but I also think I’d be better off if I liked playing team sports, going to parties full of strangers, and drinking wheatgrass. And I’ve written before about the wisdom or lack thereof of pushing your children to love writing. If it’s possible for me to help my students like reading and writing more than they do, I’d love that – and I dedicate a lot of thought and time to this end. But if not – if many students will never like to read or write no matter what I do – I can accept this reality.

I do, however, want and expect my students to be willing to read and write. I want and expect them to see college as an opportunity to practice these activities, and to even be open to enjoying them. I know that teenagers are not usually “open” by any measure. Much of their energy goes into defining themselves as “this not that” – athlete, not reader; gamer, not writer. However, I’m irritated at the prospect of another semester of complaints about being expected to read a lot and write a lot in English class.

Are there things we can do to make our students willing, if not eager, to read and write? We can try to give them “books that interest them,” but in an extremely diverse class of 42 students, coming up with books that will please everyone is not possible. We can give them choices about what they’ll read and what they’ll write about, but if reading and writing are themselves the problem, even making such choices can be difficult and frustrating. By the time they get to college, is it too late? Do I just have to grit my teeth and say, “I know you don’t like it, but you’re in college”? Or is it time to start asking less of them?

Jacob believes that we should ask, if not less, then at least different.

“Education is and should be primarily about intellectual navigation, about…skimming well, and reading carefully for information in order to upload content. Slow and patient reading, by contrast, properly belongs to our leisure hours.”

If this is true, then there is no place for the study of literature at college, at least not as core curriculum for readers and non-readers alike. Can we extrapolate from this that there is no need for “deep writing” either? That asking students to write longer pieces – which is not to say two hundred words, which they would call long, but perhaps one-thousand-word essays – is asking too much of most, that the ability to do such a thing can only “arise from within,” as Jacobs puts it, and cannot be explicitly taught to anyone?

I would argue that the skills of deep reading and deep writing can be taught to anyone. The caveat is that students must be, not necessarily enamoured of these activities, but simply willing to engage in them. They must open to the possibility that they may enjoy them more than they expect, but also to the possibility that they may not. They need to be prepared to keep stabbing away at them even if they find them difficult, boring or even infuriating, in the hope that they will get better, and with the faith that they will learn something.

Is this skill – openness, or gameness, even in the face of obstacles and possible failure – something that can be taught? Because if we can teach our students (and ourselves, for that matter) how to be willing, how to relish trying, then we will all truly be learners.

An earlier version of this week’s reprint appeared in July of 2009. It tells the story of how and why I became a reader. And it asks: how do we learn to like challenging tasks if we live in a world where boredom is impossible?

*

I became a reader because I was bored.

I learned to read when I was about four years old, but, like many children, I read only picture books until I was about seven. My parents brought me to the library every two weeks, and I filled up on library books at school as well, but picture books didn’t last long; I ended up reading them over and over because we had limited television options and, of course, no computer. (I was also a clumsy child with seasonal allergies who didn’t like to play outside.)

I occasionally glanced at the library shelves full of books for older children, and sometimes took one down to page through it, but I was intimidated. They were so thick, and if there were illustrations at all, they appeared only once a chapter or so. These “chapter books” seemed like too much work.

Every summer, we loaded up the car and drove for what seemed like months, but was probably about five hours, to our summer house to spend two or three weeks. Before leaving town, we took a special trip to the library to take out an extra-large stack of books on extended summer loan. The summer I was seven, my mother used part of her precious borrowing allotment to take out a few “chapter books” for me. “But I don’t like chapter books,” I said. She ignored me.

I read through all my picture books in the car on the way to the coast, and even dipped into some of my brothers’ horror comics to pass the time. (They both suffered from carsickness, and so most of the reading material was mine for the duration of the trip.) Then we arrived, and for two weeks, I had to keep myself entertained. At the summer house, we had no television, and a seven-year-old, even one who likes math, can only play cribbage for so long. We found things to do: there was a tree behind the house full of fascinating fuzzy yellow caterpillars; there was a rusted old bedspring in the next lot that we liked to bounce on (and somehow none of us got tetanus); our parents took us to the beach or the nearby swimming hole every second day; and the blueberries needed picking and eating.

But then it rained. We were stuck in the house, lying on the creaky couch in the living room. We groaned and rolled our eyes at the tedium. We pressed our noses against the glass to make interesting smudges or write in the steam from our breath.

And then I saw, on the endtable, the little stack of “chapter books” my mother had brought for me.

I picked one up and leafed through it. I don’t remember what book it was, but there was a full-page woodcut at the beginning of each chapter, and the rest of the pages seemed dense and busy with text. The first woodcut was of two boys and a girl, maybe brothers and a sister just like my brothers and me. And there was a duck, I think. The duck caught my interest.

It was still raining. I started to read.

I read that entire book that afternoon, and started another after dinner. When bedtime came, I hid in the bathroom with that book until my parents threatened to shut down the power if I didn’t turn out the lights and go to bed.

The experience of being entirely transported into another world was one that would shape the rest of my childhood and adolescence. Until I pursued an English degree at university and ruined it all, reading became the most important activity in my life. I might never have found it if we’d had cable TV, video games, or Internet access at that summer house.

These days, I marvel at those of my students who read for pleasure. These kids have no memory of a world without computers or cell phones. There are myriad forms of instant gratification available at their fingertips at all times. Even so, some of them still love reading. My IB students and I had a discussion last term about the future of the novel, and they rhapsodized about books; Anny told us that her bookshelf is near her bed and sometimes she’ll pull the books out and smell the pages because they make her so happy.

Most of my students, however, have no interest in reading, and I have to say that I don’t blame them. Even I don’t read for pleasure much any more, especially fiction – I watch television and films, read blogs online, and listen to nonfiction as podcasts and audiofiles. I’m a writer and English teacher, and was a voracious reader from the age of seven. If I’m not reading, what chance do my overstimulated students have, especially if they’ve never been bored long enough to reach out to a book they might normally not be bothered with?

A colleague and I were discussing his children one day, and he said that he and his wife had been debating the restrictions they should place on computer use and television viewing. He said that during their conversation, he’d had a revelation. “I want my kids to have the chance to be bored,” he said. How much creative discovery has taken place because a child or an adult was trapped inside on a rainy day and all the picture books had been read, all the video games had been won, or the cable had gone out? How much more would teenagers learn about themselves if they put their cell phones away for a few days at a time?

We could argue that kids go to school, so they know plenty about boredom. But would they be able to make more use of the “boring” hours they spend sitting at a desk if they had more chances, on their own time, to lie on the couch, look around the room, and find something new to read? If they spent more time wandering through the woods, picking up sticks to use as toys, or examining the insides of flowers? Some of my most stimulating memories of my childhood are of doing these kinds of things, and some of the most interesting people I know, young and old, grew up in environments where there was no, or limited, access to televisions, computers, game consoles, etc. They got bored, and they had to do something about it.

Most importantly, someone was there to hand them a book, a chemistry set, or a basketball, and say, “See what you can do with this.” Is this what’s missing from many of our kids’ lives? Is this what Anny’s parents did – turned off the television, handed her a book, and said, “Try this on”?

My greatest fear is not that many young people will never learn to enjoy books, although I do think that’s a shame. My greatest fear is that many will never discover things they could really love, things that could make them better, happier people, because they’re filling their time with easy distractions.

I love easy distractions as much as the next person, and you are as likely to find me checking Facebook and playing Plants vs. Zombies as reading a novel these days. But at least I had a chance. What chance do some of these kids have?